


The only living boy in New York

by DemonBeats



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Diego Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Eudora Patch is So Done, F/M, Hostage Situations, How Do I Tag, Past Diego Hargreeves/Eudora Patch, what is tagging, what is this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26111983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemonBeats/pseuds/DemonBeats
Summary: Diego thought this would be a routine vigilante job, but life always throws a curveball
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves/Reader
Kudos: 17





	The only living boy in New York

~The only living boy in New York ~

Diego stepped into the quiet building cautiously, glancing around on the lookout for anyone else.

He hadn’t expected to get a call that morning, hoping it would have been a quiet day for once, trying to process the recent news of his father’s death. He’d already butt heads with Luther, Diego wasn’t exactly excited about dealing with more meat-heads.

When he had checked all the areas he could see from the door, he slowly inched forward, heading down the empty hall, keeping his ears trained on any noise he heard. He hadn’t heard how many people were being held hostage, Diego just knew that he needed to be the one to save them, even if it was more than he could handle.

There was a tremendous crash from one of the upstairs rooms, and he stopped his movements, not hearing any screams or shouts. It must have just been one of the criminals trying to scare innocent people.

The knife-thrower rolled his eyes and headed for the stairs, keeping his footfalls light as possible in fear of alerting the bad guys. Stairs in old buildings were notorious for being creaky and loud, bad carpentry in his opinion.

As he reached the top of the stairs, voices floated out of the farthest room. Diego could only make out a few words, the rest obscured by the distance. He could hear the heavy footsteps heading to the door so he dived into the closest room, pressing his back up against the door.

Two people walked past the door he was hiding behind, moving down the stairs to somewhere else in the building, most likely to where they had been hiding for the past week.

Once they were gone, Diego crept out of the room and down the hall, making his way to the last room, moving slowly and carefully, prepared with his knives in his hands. As he got to the door, he could hear talking again, this time a woman’s voice was prominent, obviously demanding something. Either she was the leader or a very brave hostage. Diego chuckled to himself silently and peeked around the doorframe.

Inside the room, there were a few wooden boxes and large sheets draped over decades-old furniture. Along the far wall, opposite the doorway, hostages were lined up, all cuffed to each other and a few points along the wall. Diego counted eleven in total, a mix of young and older men and women. No children though and for that he was glad, he didn’t need to traumatise any children today. In front of the hostages stood three men, all with automatic rifles in their hands, belts around their waists most likely filled with more ammo. He had the thought that the other two who had gone downstairs were kitted out just the same.

The woman who he had heard in the hall was a very brave hostage, sitting up on her knees and glaring at the man in front of her. She was dishevelled, her (h/c) hair strewn about her face, her clothes creased and messed up from sitting next to other people for who knows how long.

“You’re not the smartest, are you? Not if you’re stood here, and the others went to do the important stuff.” she spat at the armed man, her (e/c) eyes alight with anger and annoyance.

Diego wanted to tell her she wasn’t being smart, bad-mouthing a large man with a gun, but honestly, he found it interesting that she was holding her own against some pigheaded brute.

The man did not comment and ignored her, standing his ground. The woman kept going, even ignoring the other hostages warning her not to rile them up. She obviously didn’t care; she knew they wouldn’t do anything yet. They didn’t even have a ransom negotiated.

He realised that he needed to get the civilians safe, that was his top priority.

Pulling a knife from his harness, Diego flicked his wrist and let go, curving the knife to lodge in the closest guy’s neck, the thud of his body hitting the floor letting him know he’d hit his mark. The other goons hadn’t noticed, but the hostages had, looking around the room in confusion. The woman that had been berating one of their captors had also noticed and had stopped talking, much to his relief.

Diego flicked his wrist and let loose another knife at the other gun-wielding man standing on the far side of the room, watching him fall to the floor with another thud. This time, the last remaining guy noticed, turning around sharply with his gun raised, looking for their assailant.

Chuckling to himself, the knife-throwing vigilante stepped out from the box he had hidden behind, pulling out another knife. Without even blinking he threw it, watching it arch through the air and lodge itself between the eyes of the gunman, following it down to the floor as the light left his eyes.

He stepped towards the hostages, grabbing the keys from one of the criminals’ belts to set them all free. “I’ll need you to trust me and listen to what I need you to do.” his voice was low and serious, all of them now hearing the shuffling footsteps coming from downstairs.

They nodded but the brave woman just stared at him with hard eyes. “There is such a thing as common sense, you know. We’re not going to just wander off and try to get out ourselves.” She snarked, pushing her (h/c) hair from her face with her now free hands.

Diego held his tongue and hid a smirk, admiring the girls’ wit and sarcasm. “Alright, little lady, I get it. I just need to know that you’re not going to punch anybody in the face without assessing the situation first.” he snarked back, glancing around at the small group of people to make sure no one was hurt.

The woman huffed and glared at him, he could feel her eyes boring into the side of his head. Diego chose to ignore her in favour of starting to lead them out of the room, checking the hallway before stepping out. He raised a finger to his lips as a signal to keep quiet; watching all of them carefully make their way to the next room along.

The sassy lady was the last to leave, still glaring daggers into Diego’s head but she didn’t say anything, her lips pursed as if to keep herself from speaking. In his head, Diego was laughing, his attention thoroughly captured by this intriguing young woman.

Once everyone was out of the room, keeping his steps light, he made his way to the front of the group, peering down the hall with his eyes watching the stairs.

“Here’s the plan,” he whispered, loud enough so they could all hear him but not enough to alert the men downstairs. “You are going to follow me down the stairs in single file until we get to the bottom. The police should be here soon and I want all of you to be waiting at the front door when they arrive. I’ll go find the last two idiots and make sure they don’t come after you. Got it?” He waited for them all to nod before he nodded with a slight grin.

“Hang on.” a voice halted him from turning around. “I’m going with you to find the last two of them.” He huffed when he recognised the voice. It was the same woman from before.

“And why do you want to do that?” Diego’s tone was annoyed but he tried not to let it show on his face. They were running out of time and he was running out of patience.

“Because they took something from me and I need it back.” Her eyes shone with fury and he sighed in defeat.

“Right, fine.” Diego relented, holding his hands up in surrender. “But you will do as I say so you don’t get hurt, understood?”

The girl nodded with a slight smile, clearly glad to have her way.

“Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get going. Remember to keep quiet.” He reminded everyone and started to head towards the stairs.

Nothing happened as they walked down the stairs and made it to the front door, the other two criminals must have been further inside the house than Diego thought. He and his new companion left the small group of hostages at the door and slowly wandered closer to the main hall, narrowly avoiding large pieces of debris.

“So… what did they take from you that you had to get back yourself?” Diego asked conversationally, his voice low.

“What’s it to you, knife-boy?” The girl muttered, not looking at her saviour.

He rolled his eyes with a sigh. “I’m just trying to make conversation. And my name is The Kraken, not knife-boy.” he tried not to pout, keeping his eyes on their surroundings instead of looking at her.  
“Wow, how fancy.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice, obviously not impressed by him in any way. She ran her hands again through her already messy hair, making it ten times worse. “That’s more of a villain name than a supposed superhero’s name.” she scoffed, glaring up at him once again.

“Have you got a problem with me?” Diego came to a stop and looked down at her, starting to get frustrated with her. “I just saved your ass and this is how you thank me?”

“Saved me? Are you kidding me? You didn’t do anything!” She was whisper-yelling at him, well aware that the other two gunmen could be close by. “All you did was fling your knives at them! How is that saving us?” she poked at his harness where the knives were, her (e/c) eyes locked with his.

“Maybe I should have just left you there and saved the others, they showed a little gratitude,” Diego growled, genuinely starting to get upset by her actions.

“You know why I don’t like you, Mr Kraken? Because you get in the way of doing my job.” she spat out, her glare worsening, her eyes full of unadulterated anger.

That’s when Diego finally realised who she was. He had seen her before around the precinct, handing Eudora files and sometimes coffee. Oh dear.

“Oh, you must be (y/n) (l/n)... nice to make your acquaintance.” He pulled a charming grin and held his hand out for her to shake.

(y/n) scoffed and knocked his hand away. “Yeah, what of it? We don’t have time for this!” She stomped away, her eyes scanning all the different doors.

Diego tried not to be offended, his pride a little hurt that she knew who he was and still didn’t think much of him. He followed after her.

“You know that I am still supposed to be protecting you, right? You’re an innocent civilian and I came to help, therefore I’m supposed to leap into danger, not you. So get behind me and let me lead.” He gently tugged on her arm to get her to step behind him, slowly opening the nearest door.

(y/n) was not happy with this but she complied, wanting neither of them to get hurt. She kept her thoughts to herself, going back to glaring at his back.

Diego peered into the room and saw the last two goons standing in front of some monitors, facing away from the door. He shuffled in quietly, motioning for (y/n) to stay put while he made his way further into the room.

She didn’t. She followed him into the room but stuck to the walls, making her way around the room that way.

He noticed but didn’t stop her, just pulling out his knives and throwing them at the two men before they could even react to his presence. Once they were down, Diego got closer to the screens. He had no idea what he was looking at so he started to look for any stolen items from the hostages.

(y/n) had made her way over and had found what she was looking for, picking up her badge and her gun, slipping them back where they belonged. While Diego wasn’t looking, she admired him from the short distance, her thoughts flashing back to all the times she had seen him at the precinct with Patch and sometimes in a holding cell. She thought he was handsome but she knew he still wasn’t completely over his relationship with Eudora.

Diego didn’t find anything useful and he could hear the police sirens outside the building. He looked over at the detective and grinned. “Got what you needed? Your backup is here now.” He couldn’t help but tease her.

She shook her head with an exasperated smile. “You really are annoying, I should lock you up for getting in my way.” (y/n) teased back, feeling less and less annoyed by the second.

“Wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened to me.” He laughed, starting to leave the room.

(y/n) grabbed a pen and a scrap of paper, scribbling something down before going after him, following him out of the front doors.

Patch was there waiting for them, her arms crossed and a severely unimpressed face aimed at Diego. (y/n) giggle and pressed the paper into Diego’s hand.

“If you’re still alive…” she laughed and walked over to the squad of police cars.

Diego grinned sheepishly at Patch and left the scene of the crime, heading to his own car parked down the block. He looked down at the piece of paper and laughed.

_Call me, Kraken ~ xxxxx-xxxxxx - (y/n)_

He felt that this could be the start of something new.

The end :)

**Author's Note:**

> This took me far too long and I restarted it like seven times, but here we go!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> Come scream at me on twitter! @Sanrio_Child


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